Patricia Bracewell was born and raised in California, where she taught literature and composition before embarking upon her writing career. Her debut novel, Shadow on the Crown, is set in 11th century England and grew out of her admiration for a remarkable queen, Emma of Normandy, whose life has been all but buried in the footnotes of recorded history. Her second novel, The Price of Blood, continues the story of Queen Emma during the Viking invasions of England in the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Patricia is hard at work on the final book in her trilogy about Queen Emma. She and her Canadian husband have two grown sons and live in the San Francisco Bay area.